A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
For more on how Ukraine pulled off that drone attack against Russian planes, we called Hanna Shelest. She's a security analyst and director of the Foreign Policy Council's Ukrainian Prism think tank in Odessa, Ukraine. So, Hanna, I mean, one attack - what? - 2,500 miles from Ukraine's border. So can you briefly just lay out how the mechanics and logistics of this could've worked?
HANNA SHELEST: Surely. The operation been prepared for approximately 18 months by the security services of Ukraine, who bought a lot of - more than 100 of the very simple drones, Chinese-made. And we're speaking about the drones that looks like these you use at the wedding, but just a little bit bigger. They've been hidden in the special small houses that you can use for your fishery, then put to the tracks, brought very close, a very short distance to the airfields - and then simultaneously at the same moment, with the remote control, launched and definitely, as we know now, reached most of the destinations.
MARTÍNEZ: And you said Chinese-made for the drones. A little ironic considering Russia and China's relationship right now.
SHELEST: Absolutely. But you need to understand that the biggest amount of the original drones on the battlefield always been these simple Chinese...
MARTÍNEZ: OK.
SHELEST: ...That you can buy even at AliExpress, or it's not something of the even dual use. That's how Ukrainians made them three years ago. And that was really funny to read the Russian social networks, when some of their commanders wrote that or because they were Chinese-made, now we need the retaliation against the China.
MARTÍNEZ: How were they activated? I mean, how did Ukraine manage to coordinate that launch remotely?
SHELEST: Through the Russian mobile operators network. They had been initiated there, and then the whole operation being controlled at the territory of Ukraine. That's what the modern technologies allow us to do. But the most difficult here definitely was the command-control, so the whole coordination here in Kyiv and taking everything on the same time and in secrecy.
MARTÍNEZ: And this wasn't carried out by Ukraine's military but by its security service. Why is that important?
SHELEST: I mean, for Ukraine now, we have so-called the defense forces, where we include everybody. That is the security services that are closer to the FBI, plus other domestic agencies in the U.S. Then it is the foreign intelligence. It is the military intelligence - that is classical military - because when you are in the defense war, when you fight against aggression, there are some distinguish in the functions, for sure, who is doing what better. But at the same time, the sophisticated operations are done usually by those who can do it the best.
MARTÍNEZ: Ukraine says that over 40 bombers were damaged or destroyed. Russia says only several planes were struck. Which one is closer to the truth?
SHELEST: Ukrainians are usually not given the numbers if we don't have a double check. And here, luckily, we have a lot of the visuals first of all because Russians been filming everything there. And we have a lot of videos of the common Russians in the social networks. Then in some airfields, we had the confirmation via the auxiliary drones that had been filming it. It's also possible to see. And now we have the confirmations from the satellites. I cannot say it's exactly 41 totally confirmed because that also can be the two different stages. It can be damaged but possible for repairment, or it can be totally damaged. At least 12 of them are completely damaged because they were full of fuel and already with the ballistic missiles on board, so you can imagine the level of explosion.
MARTÍNEZ: Now, some pro-Russian bloggers have called this Russia's Pearl Harbor, which I don't quite understand because the Japanese attack in 1941, that led the United States to enter World War II. Russia is already in a war with Ukraine. So what kind of message does this send to the Kremlin?
SHELEST: You know, the real Pearl Harbor of this war, it was the Hostomel airfield attempt in February 2022 against Ukraine. But for the Russians, you need to understand that in their narratives, they always build analogies with the Second World War because that's considered as the most significant part of the history and of the current narrative around this war. So because Pearl Harbor was so symbolic for the whole nation understanding that war is here, that's why they made this analogy.
MARTÍNEZ: And really quickly, about 20 seconds, how are people inside Ukraine reacting?
SHELEST: With a lot of the memes, first of all, joking over the situation, but also with cheering our armed forces and security services. Ukrainians needed some victory. We needed some good news, considering everything was been happening at the battlefield.
MARTÍNEZ: That's Hanna Shelest, director of the Foreign Policy Council's Ukrainian Prism think tank, speaking with us from Odessa, Ukraine. Thank you very much.
SHELEST: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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